Life of Pi is most famous for the CGI tiger of the second act, but the entire first act of Ang Lee's film was shot on location in the coastal town of Puducherry (formerly Pondicherry), where the blend of French colonial and Indian cultures is unique in south India and a true one-off for travellers

Alfonso Cuarón, the director of Harry Potter: the Prisoner of Azkaban, and the acclaimed road movie Y tu Mamá También, is set to direct the film adaptation of Life of Pi, Yann Martel's Booker-prize-winning novel.